EXPO-inherited facilities demonstrate an excellent example of adaptation to the needs of our economy. Astana EXPO-2017’s management is once again pleased to present an updated post-exhibition complex with astonishing non-standard solutions!

No matter how many changes took place, the exhibition complex was and still is a place for new achievements. As you know, the construction of EXPO-2017 facilities in Astana was timed to an international specialized exhibition. But the facilities were built not just as a place to show exhibits. EXPO organizers initially planned to make the exhibition complex a new tourist and financial center of the capital city. Such anchor investment projects as Astana EXPO contribute to the comprehensive growth of cities, create a large number of jobs and projects for investment, give impetus to the development of transport infrastructure in the adjacent territory and lay the basis for polycentrism.

Territory of Future

The EXPO Complex is currently a development and support platform for 4 global projects initiated by the President. All of them are united by the power of innovation.

For example, the Astana International Financial Center (“AIFC”) is destined to become the leading financial center in the Eurasian space, a catalyst for raising foreign capital and a financial hub connecting markets in Kazakhstan, Europe and Asia. Names of the world’s leading companies will very soon appear on the AIFC’s building. Conditions and possibilities they will have an opportunity to enjoy are very attractive and even more: rights of foreign investors who become residents and participants of the financial center and who invest in priority economy sectors of Kazakhstan will be protected in accordance with the highest international standards by the AIFC’s International Arbitration Center. Another ambitious but quite achievable task is to enter the World’s Top 50 International Financial Centers in the next three years.

Thanks to the AIFC, Astana has already acquired a new status of “financial capital”. As you may remember, on November 14 President Nursultan NAZARBAYEV launched trading on the Astana International Exchange (AIX) in the Nur Alem Sphere. The exchange gives new opportunities for multi-million dollar deals between large Kazakhstani and foreign companies. Kazatomprom, a leader in the global uranium industry, became the first national company to offer its shares within the IPO Program on AIX. As the President noted, if earlier we could watch the Wall Street trading only on a TV set, now a high-tech exchange infrastructure with a full business cycle is being created on the EXPO platform.

Furthermore, the Astana Hub International IT Park, a domestic equivalent of the famous Silicon Valley, will become one of the most technologically advanced post-exhibition projects. The IT Park offers ideal conditions for the development of innovative technologies and start-ups made in Kazakhstan. The IT Park is expected to become a core and driver for the development of the innovation ecosystem in Kazakhstan and an internationally recognized hub for the development of IT business.

The IT University is another powerful driver which will help our country become a part of the digital world. The University is founded in collaboration with the world’s leading technology universities like Carnegie-Mellon and Singularity University. The University will train highly qualified specialists for the digital industry of Kazakhstan under innovative, accelerated programs.

The International Center for Green Technologies and Investment Projects will be the ideological heritage of Astana Expo-2017. It will contribute to the accelerated transition of Kazakhstan and subsequently countries of the Central Asian Region to a green economy with the implementation of research findings, and the transfer of advanced renewable energy technologies.

Territory of Success

You may be surprised, but it’s not all infrastructure resources of Astana-EXPO! Besides promotion of flagship projects, the EXPO Complex becomes a platform for the active and successful development of the country’s business market. The national company reports the EXPO Business Center with an area of ​​35,000 square meters will be opened in the near future on the territory of the exhibition complex. The Center is built meeting all the international quality standards for Class A offices. The new business center is a unique combination of novelty and ideal conditions for comfortable business doing.

Many companies will highly appreciate main advantages of the center, which offers the highest comfort and convenient infrastructure in close proximity to the Astana International Financial Center, the Nur Alem Sphere, and the EXPO Congress Center.

A good list of its advantages may be also supplemented with convenient logistics – proximity to the administrative center of the capital city, N. Nazarbayev International Airport, Nurly Zhol Railway Station, Mega Silk Way, which is the largest shopping center in Kazakhstan, located within the walking distance, and ultramodern hotel Hilton Astana.

The largest exhibition center in Kazakhstan will be launched in 2019. The Center will become a multi-functional business arena to host major international and national exhibitions, congresses and other significant events. The total area of the center makes up 20 thousand square meters, which will comprise multifunctional pavilions and halls.

Being exhibited in the center is an ideal chance for companies to present their own achievements and developments to foreign partners, enter into business deals, acquire loyal customers and create a positive company image. The architecture and the most modern multimedia equipment of the exhibition center make it possible to arrange events of any scale and complexity.

The EXPO Congress Center, which was built to host major business and culture meetings, continues to operate successfully. It was the Congress Center that hosted the EXPO-2017 opening and closing ceremonies. The transforming halls of the Congress Center, which can comfortably comprise up to 4,500 people, are able to realize any design ideas of future events and adapt to an individual style of the event.

The Nur Alem Sphere is a central facility of the exhibition complex, the pride and the visiting card of the EXPO. This is a fundamental structure in the form of an ideal sphere with a diameter of 80 meters, which has no analogues in the world. Eight floors of the most advanced installations and thematic laboratories attract thousands of visitors from different parts of Kazakhstan and all over the world.

The sphere is from time to time supplemented with the most interesting renewable energy exhibits: the latest interactive game devices, pilot models of “smart cities”, models of advanced developments in the environmental engineering.

A wide range of various exhibits makes the Sphere not only an entertaining place, but also provides a basis for the development of education and science in our country. Tens of thousands of students have already visited more than 100 open classes and lessons in the Sphere as part of the Kids & Student Future Energy Educational Program.

Nur Alem has a large comfortable lecture hall to arrange courses, master classes, trainings, lectures, workshops and other events. Sound and projection equipment create necessary conditions for effective collaboration, creativity and communication, while the amazing atmosphere of creativity and communication in one of the main symbols of the capital city makes every event unforgettable in the lecture hall.

One Year Older

The EXPO Complex is still a favorite leisure area for residents and guests of the capital city. The area includes a park zone, restaurants, cafes and a first-class children’s playground. By tradition, an ice town, ice rink and a Christmas tree will again welcome visitors of the EXPO Complex in winter.

A year after the EXPO Exhibition was closed, with the launch of breakthrough projects and the opening of new facilities, the EXPO territory has evolved into a global business complex, a center of new achievements in the country’s economy, culture, science and technical progress. EXPO is currently one of the largest and most innovative clusters of our time, which brought together business, entertainment and exhibition projects in one place with a single architectural solution. A visit to the EXPO Complex is a kind of trip to a mini-city, wherein the Nur Alem Sphere is only part of the business, tourist or leisure route.

The success of the renovated exhibition complex, the recognition and triumph of a new EXPO were predetermined by the far sightedness of the President, which is fully expressed in his concept of the post-exhibition use of EXPO-2017 facilities.